


All I Want

by padeals_lucnval



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:48:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22922848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padeals_lucnval/pseuds/padeals_lucnval
Summary: Valerie returns, having met with some family to talk through some of their troubles. set post season 8, somewhere before season 9 (i haven't watched it yet). some era-typical homophobia.i have also made a playlist of soft love songs for this short, and any future ones involving LucnVal called "rum & hot chocolates" on Spotify.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson & Valerie Dyer, Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	All I Want

I felt awful, not being able to help more than a few kind words. She deserves so much love I cannot give her, even if she wanted it from me. Ever since Cyril came into my life, I’ve felt this tearing in the fabric of our friendship, like I'm being pulled in two directions. To her, and to him. Despite her pushing me away and not being able to talk like we used to, and him always being there, I felt like I want it to be reversed. If he could pull away, maybe Val would stop pulling away. I almost wanted him to because, if it came down to it, I’d much rather spend the rest of my life with her, growing together as old friends, than with him. The attraction faded between us like old glue, as if the only thing joining us was the colour of our skin being vaguely similar. With him, the fading had already started. With her, well we’re like magnets, destined to be pulled back together. North and south. All I wanted was to knock on her door, let her spill her heart out to me, hold me as I hold her. She needs it. She needs all the love the world can afford, I want to give that to her. But alas, in her pain she has become closed off. 

I spent all day thinking about her, how hard she has taken this, with her gran. It is the hardest decision anyone could fathom. But she spends so much time alone now, so when she came in after meeting her family and barely spoke to anyone before retiring to her room, no one knew who to turn to. I knew that a week before it would have been me, no questions asked, but now I’m not sure. We all just stood, expecting someone else to run after her. Trixie looked to me, as if to say “you go” as if she knew it would be as much for me as it was for her. Instead I looked away, and tended to the autoclave which had finished just as she sped past. I felt trixie looking at me, despite my back being turned away, I felt her say “pathetic, pull yourself together for your friend, we all know you love her, now go show it”. I was saying that to myself though, and it hurt too much to ignore it. 

“Trixie, could you take care of this for me? She shouldn’t be alone” 

She gave a small nod of permission for me to follow the heartbroken woman, the stairs a daunting physical manifestation of the distance that had grown between the two of us. As I climbed each one, I felt heavier and heavier, my heart hurting to think I hadn't immediately ran to her side. By the time I was standing by her closed door, it was as if I was on autopilot. My hand knocked before I could think of an absurd reason not to.

“Go away!” I heard, muffled through the wood, but the intent was just as hard hitting. 

“Valerie, darling, I don’t need you to talk to me. I just don't think you should be alone. Not now.” 

There was silence, for just a few seconds, before she answered the door. Her brown eyes reddened and swollen, tears still sat on her face, still rolled from her eyes. Her lips were so chewed and bitten it looked as if she had tried to eat them off. The hand holding the door open was raw, bruised, nails bitten lower than they ever should be. She barely let me exhale before she responded to my being there.

“And it's all about what you think, isn’t it? You know what. I am fed up with people telling me what they think is best for me. Family telling me it should be me, sitting there, rotting away in a cell. Telling me I should be ashamed for the broken loyalty. You tell me I should have company. Now? I think I deserve some time alone, to think freely. you don't even care anyway. Why don’t you go comfort Cyril? I bet his problems are easier anyway. His stupid bloody face. Well don’t just stand there. Go!”

“You know I can’t do that, valerie.”

“It’s not like-”

“Don’t you dare say that I don't care.” I eject, shocked by myself for cutting her off. “Don’t say I don't worry about you. Because I do. I worry every day, because i know it, what it's like to get ignored when i'm outside, to get treated like a broken key thrown to the back of a drawer, to be looked down on. Just let me sit with you valerie. Let me care”

She stood away from the door, looking to her bed as if to say “fine”. Her face contorted a sad smile, tears still dripping from her eyes, face still blushed. Her walk back to the bed was unsteady, she had to put her hand on it to steady her. I noticed it then, the raw smell of beer. She never drank it herself, unless maybe she did this time. I closed the door behind me, giving her privacy in her looming break down. Her collapse onto the bed told me everything, she was tired. Maybe not so much physically. I couldn’t blame her. To be pushed and rejected by the people you love, the people who raised you. It would never be hard. 

“I told them” she said, almost as an exhaled. Something that escaped her. She looked down at her hands, so I did. She twiddled her thumbs, scratching at the top of her clasped fingers. I walked over to her, sat down by her side, and held her hands in mine. I let her pick at me, rather than wearing her skin down any further. 

“Told them what, darling?” I said, looking to her face, but not at her eyes. I felt as though, if I caught their attention at any point, I would not be able to hold myself together. 

“Well, they cast me out already. One more secret out in the open couldn’t hurt. But it was stupid, luce, so bloody stupid.” she said, tears re-forming in her eyes.

“What do you mean my dear?”

“I could lose my job Luce, the only thing I have going for me at the moment, and I could lose it. One stupid secret I’ve kept so carefully and now its out.” she laughed to herself, but it came out more as a huff, and wasn’t enough to break the stream of tears. 

“Would you like to tell me? I’m good at secrets too.” I say, trying my best to hold myself together. I couldn’t even begin to consider what it could be, something so bad she could lose her job. It seemed unfathomable that she could murder. What could be so bad?

“Oh. you know me Luce. I never so much as looked at a guy. Never dreamed of a relationship. Never wanted what you have with. With cyril” she said, his name barely audible in the cloud of sadness. “I never dreamed of a white wedding, not with me as a bride standing next to a husband. I tried. I really really tried, Luce. but I do. I couldn’t love them. The boys.”

“Oh, love”

“Don’t call me that! Please, lucille, you don’t know how much it hurts to hear you say it. Because. It will never mean what I can only dream it will mean.”

“Oh my Lo-.. Valerie.” I said, squeezing her hands because there really wasn’t anything i could think to say that would help.

“Don’t touch me Luce, it's probably best you keep your distance until it all comes out. Ha, comes out. Ironic” she quips, deadpanned, “ I’m gay, Lucille, I’m a bleeding, good for nothing dyke, and I don’t deserve you, not even as a friend.” 

“No” 

“What?”

“You’re not. You aren't a good for nothing,, dyke. You are a beautiful, kind hearted woman. Do you know how many people in this country would’ve turned me away if I knocked on their door, ripped stockings and covered in blood? It's more than I care to think about. But you, you came to my aid because you. You saw me as a person. Someone with gravel in their knee you care so truly and deeply for others that I think, sometimes, you forget to care about yourself. Val. You deserve every good thing the world can offer you. You are a strong, amazing woman.`` I opened up, both my heart and my arms. “Come here darling. Cry out all of your fear and anger. Let me take some of this pain away from you”

We sat for a while, embracing each other. We both cried. And, eventually, we just stayed there in the stillness of the room. I stroked her hair for a while, and rubbed her back. She just held my waist and waited, until she was ready. She had opened her heart up, i was a fool to not open up back. To not tell her about Cyril, how i’ve been falling out of whatever relationship we had for weeks. 

“Valerie?”

“Mmm”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” she said, sitting up a bit and releasing her arms, but still resting on me.

“I don’t love Cyril. I think i liked the idea of him, being able to write back to my mum that, in the midst of Poplar, i have managed to find a suitable partner. But I think that’s all I really wanted. Besides I think I’ve found someone else.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Well, they're kind, and unimaginably good looking.”

“Oh?” she said, deflated slightly, “do I know him?”

“You definitely know them better than anyone else.”

“oh , please don't make me set you up with him. It better not be my family.”

“You are sometimes quite daft, Val. they're definitely a Dyer.” she frowned at me. “They have gorgeous short brown hair, and bright eyes. Dimples which makes their smile look even cuter. And the most beautiful heart of everyone. Valerie. Please look at me.”

“No, it’s fine”

“Valerie, you fool. It's you. It was always going to be you. I think I knew that, when you saved me from the snow when we first met.”

“Luce, don't tease me. I don't think my body could take that.”

I love you Val, “I really like you Val, could I kiss you?”

“I - I don’t know, do you really? I mean. Me?”

I nod, and she nods back, tears a common factor between both of us. I hold her chin, her bruised and swollen face, in the kindest way i could so as to not hurt her. She had other ideas, almost slamming her face towards mine, lips joining, foreheads touching, tears melting into one. 

“I really like you too, Luce” 


End file.
